Loongate: Farage makes his move
To slightly misquote PG Wodehouse:
“Loon is calling to loon like mastodons bellowing across primaeval swamps”…
The ad above appears in today’s Daily Telegraph: a good choice as, together with the Mail and Express, it’s become more or less the unofficial mouthpiece of Ukip. Today’s edition also carries the following:
Loongate: Everyday is Christmas for Nigel Farage
The real impact of ‘loongate’, says James Kirkup, is to expose the “running sore” within the Tory party over core ideals.
With reports of Tory party activists already beginning to defect to Ukip over the comments, which have been attributed to an unnamed close ally of Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Political Editor James Kirkup said the story exposed “a running sore” within the Conservative ranks.
Emerging at the same time a Tory grassroots backlash over gay marriage proposals and following on from the Parliamentary infighting over an EU referendum, the Telegraph reporter said the continued Conservative unrest was making life easy for Ukip.
“Everyday is Christmas if you’re Nigel Farage,” he said.
“Each week that comes by the Tories find a way of splitting, dividing, essentially underlining that strategic fracture that they have on the issues where Nigel Farage harvests votes.”
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Enjoy!
Wagner 200 on Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 starts a week of Wagner in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
It begins with:
Wagner In Zurich: 12.15, Saturday 18 May
Tom Service travels to Zurich, where Richard Wagner the revolutionary lived in exile for nine years, and finds a city which played a crucial role in the development of the composer’s thinking and provided fertile ground for his Ring Cycle, and which is marking the 200th anniversary with a festival including a new musical theatre piece by the director Hans Neuenfels. Tom visits the home of the Wesendonck family, where Wagner was inspired to write Tristan und Isolde and his Wesendonck Lieder, and also the idyllic Tribschen district of Lucerne, where Wagner later lived and composed his Siegfried Idyll as a birthday gift to his second wife, Cosima. It was from Germany’s 1848 revolutions that Wagner had fled to Switzerland, and from Leipzig, Wagner’s birthplace and a city which is central to this year’s anniversary celebrations, the BBC’s Berlin correspondent Stephen Evans reports on the composer’s controversial place in German culture today.
Other highlights:
Saturday Classics: 3.00pm, Saturday 18 May
The great English operatic bass Robert Lloyd joins Radio 3′s celebration of the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth with selections from his favourite Wagner operas.
Mastersingers of Nuremberg
Duration: 58 minutes: 1.00pm, Sunday 19 May
Immortalised by Wagner in his famous opera, Lucie Skeaping looks back on the life and music of the real Hans Sachs and his fellow Mastersingers in 17th Century Germany.
Wagner and His World
At 12.00 pm throughout the week Donald Macleod explores the connections and relationships that helped establish Wagner as the most revolutionary musical thinker of the 19th century. Includes:
One Winter’s Afternoon
8.00 pm, Sunday 19 May
The story of the great operatic rivalry between Guiseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner in the year marking the bicentenary of their births. In real life, the two great composers never met.
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There’s no denying the fact that Richard Wagner wrote some sublime music. But never forget this, either:
Wagner was a vicious anti-Semite and it permeated his music. The Mastersingers of Nuremberg was Adolph Hitler’s favourite opera, as Wagner enthusiast Paul Mason recently pointed out.
Benny Goodman & Buddy Rich: two amiable guys (!)
My pal Michael Steinman, over at his Jazz Lives blog, has discovered some film of Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich together on the Merv Griffin show in 1979:
This is significant because Benny and Buddy had only ever worked together once before (an obscure recording date in 1947 that Rich mentions during the interview), and because both, as bandleaders, were notorious martinets: the combination could have been disastrous.
In fact, the meeting seems to have been very amiable, with Buddy paying Benny the compliment of comparing him favourably with Artie Shaw (Benny’s great clarinet-bandleader rival in the thirties), while Benny sort-of apologises for not having hired Buddy in 1939 to replace Gene Krupa (he hired the brilliant but unreliable Dave Tough instead).
Both these men could be complete assholes. The recording of Buddy screaming abuse at his band has become a legend in profanity, and would put Sir Alex Ferguson and his ‘hair-drying’ to shame. As for Goodman, he has twelve pages devoted to stories of his misanthropic anti-social antics in Bill Crow’s Jazz Anecdotes: the only problem is choosing the best one. I finally decided upon this, from pianist Dave Frishberg, who in the early sixties worked in a quartet with Goodman’s star drummer from the thirties, Gene Krupa, at the ‘Metropole’, New York:
“Must have been 1962. Benny walked in and the place went crazy. We were on the bandstand, just having finished an hour-and-fifteen-minute set. I looked at Gene and his face was white. He said, ‘It’s the King of Swing, and he’s got his horn. I don’t believe this. Here he comes.’
“Benny walked up on the stand and began to try out reeds. he stared off into space and tootled and fluttered up and down the scale. This went on for long minutes. Meanwhile Jack Waldorf [owner of the Metropole] had herded dozens — hundreds! — of passersby into the club, and he had them chanting, ‘Benny! Benny!’ Some were hollering out years — like ’1939!’ The camera girl, standing down by the bar, snapped a picture and hurried downstairs to make prints, promising autographs of Goodman and Krupa.
“Benny was finally ready. He said, “Brushes, Gene.” Gene obediently picked up the brushes and flashed a big smile, but I could see he was in a cold fury. Then Benny turned to me and said, ‘Sweet Lorraine, in G. Give me a little introduction.” I complied, and Benny entered in F. He waved me out and continued without piano accompaniment.
“He stayed on the stand for about an hour. The camera girl was going into a second printing. Then, abruptly, he packed up his horn and descended, demanding safe escort through the crowd, and he was gone into the night. he hadn’t signed one picture.
Krupa was drenched with two shows’ worth of perspiration, but he sat patiently on the steps of the bandstand and signed dozens of photos. He was writing personal notes on each one, asking each customer, ‘Who shall I inscribe this to?’ Later in the dressing room he said to us, ‘I was glad to sign this picture. This will be in a lot of homes, believe me. Did you get a load of this?’
“We inspected the picture then. And there was Benny with his horn in his mouth, perched on a stool with his legs spread wide. His fly was open.
“‘Buttons!’ Gene said. ‘Buttons!’ That suit’s probably from about 1940.”
NB: The group on the Merv Griffin Show was completed by Jimmy Rowles, piano, Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar and Jack Six, bass. I agree with Michael that Jimmy Rowles is particularly impressive. But, of course, they’re all fantastic.
Galloway on North Korea…and God
I keep promising myself (and readers) that I’ll never write another word about that posturing charlatan Galloway. But for a blogger, he’s the gift that just keeps on giving:
George Galloway: “But there have been achievements in North Korea. They do have a satellite circling the earth. They have built a nuclear power industry even though they suspended it on false promises from President Clinton and other U.S. statesmen. They do have a cohesive, pristine actually, innocent culture. A culture that has not been penetrated by globalization and by Western mores and is very interesting to see. But I wouldn’t like to live there. And I’m not advocating their system. Not least because they certainly don’t believe in God in North Korea…”
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/08/british-mp-defends-north-korea-against-wicked-america-and-evil-britain/
H/t: Pete Cookson
Prof Callinicos suffers “personal inconvenience”
Above: this man has been personally inconvenienced
The organisers of a Marxist Conference (‘Historical Materialism’) in India have withdrawn their invitation to Professor Callinicos. He seems to be quite upset, and has tweeted (https://twitter.com/alex_callinicos/status/316678538310864897) as follows:
Dear Organizing Committee,
I was very surprised to receive your communication. You ask me ‘to withdraw [my] decision to attend’. But I only made that decision in response to an invitation to participate in your conference. So what you are in fact doing is withdrawing your invitation, as is indicated by the fact that you have already deleted me from the conference programme. I think you should take full responsibility for the decision you are actually taking.
I understand of course how important the issue of rape and sexual violence is in India, especially after last December’s gang rape and murder in Delhi. It is also a very important question in Britain, and for me personally, as it is for the Socialist Workers Party. We are strongly committed to women’s liberation. We took the rape allegations against a leading member extremely seriously; the controversy over how the party handled these allegations is indicative of that seriousness. The special conference that we recently held to resolve this controversy has set up a committee to review our procedures, and we intend to use this to reinforce our efforts to combat the oppression of women.
It is not for me to judge how grave the danger of disruption to your conference is. But an appeal circulated by an academic at JNU does not reflect well intellectually or morally on those agitating against my presence at the conference. This document is a farrago of nonsense that treats allegations as proven fact, cites tendentious opinion pieces as ‘reports’, and includes the laughable assertion that ‘the journal Historical Materialism is allied, and … is known to be principally operated by Socialist Workers Party members and supporters’.
Since this is a conference sponsored by Historical Materialism, let me remind you that I am a longstanding supporter of the journal and, along with Marxist intellectuals of many political tendencies, a member of its International Advisory Board. I have tried to support HM’s development both in Britain and internationally. Your decision damages HM’s commitment to promote Marxist theoretical development independently of organized political alignments.
So I regret your decision – not just for this reason, but also because I value my long-standing connections with the Marxist intellectual left in India. In taking this decision, based directly or indirectly on interested misrepresentations of debates inside the SWP, you run the risk of compromising your own intellectual and political integrity.
This is to say nothing of the personal inconvenience and expense you are exposing me to by withdrawing your invitation a week after you had circulated a programme that included me as chairing one session and speaking at another, and barely a week before I was due to fly to India. This is quite unacceptable in what is meant to be an academic conference, and it is also not how socialists should behave towards one another.
In comradeship,
Alex Callinicos
[NB: Statement from the organising group of the Delhi HM Conference, here]
Galloway exposes himself …
… as a racist and antisemite
It’ll be interesting to see whether anyone who is not an avowed or obvious antisemite is prepared to defend Galloway over this:
From Cherwell.org (Oxford students’ online magazine) Wednesday 20th February 2013:
George Galloway has been accused of ‘pure racism’ by his debate opponent after ‘storming out’ of Christ Church.
George Galloway, the Respect MP for Bradford West, has been accused by Oxford students of anti-semitism.
Mr Galloway “stormed out” of a debate at Christ Church on Wednesday evening, upon finding out that his opponent, Eylon Aslan-Levy, a third-year PPEist at Brasenose, was an Israeli citizen.
Mr Galloway had spoken for ten minutes in favour of the motion ‘Israel should withdraw immediately from the West Bank’, before giving way to Aslan-Levy.
Less than three minutes into Aslan-Levy’s speech against the motion, Galloway was made aware that his opponent was an Israeli citizen.
“I have been misled,” Mr Galloway then commented, interrupting Aslan-Levy’s speech. “I don’t debate with Israelis”. He then left the room with his wife, Putri Gayatri Pertiwi, and was escorted out of Christ Church by a college porter. When prompted to explain why Aslan-Levy’s nationality prompted him to abandon the debate, Galloway stated that “I don’t recognize Israel.”
In a statement late on Wednesday evening Galloway explained that “I refused this evening to debate with an Israeli, a supporter of the Apartheid state of Israel.
“The reason is simple; No recognition, No normalisation. Just Boycott, divestment and sanctions, until the Apartheid state is defeated.” Mr Galloway is a leading political proponent of the campaign to ‘boycott’ Israeli goods, services and – it emerged tonight – people.
Huhne to go to jail
At a time when the revolutionary left is coming in for a lot of stick, it’s worth remembering that many bourgeois politicians are also scum-bags and bare-faced liars. At least Huhne will be going to jail. His perversion of the Course of Justice (bullying his then-wife into taking the rap for a speeding offence) is typical of this loathsome shyster. Back in 2009/2010 he even ripped off the tax payer with the following expenses claim, a £1,500 bill he submitted as part of his parliamentary expenses:
But a bit of petty money-grubbing like that is as nothing to the swine’s treatment of his ex-wife and family, as revealed in court today:
The messages between Chris Huhne and his son Peter that were read out in court:
PH: “We all know that you were driving and you put pressure on Mum. Accept it or face the consequences. You’ve told me that was the case. Or will this be another lie?”
CH: “I have no intention of sending Mum to Holloway Prison for three months. Dad.”
PH: “Are you going to accept your responsibility or do I have to contact the police and tell them what you told me?”
PH: “I don’t want to speak to you, you disgust me, f**k off.”
PH: “You are the most ghastly man I’ve ever known. Does it give you pleasure that you have lost almost all of your friends?”
PH: “You just don’t get it.”
CH: “Happy Christmas. I love you”
PH: “I hate you so f**k off.”
Nooman and “Socialist Unity”: a malignant cult
In his increasingly undignified rightward belly-crawl from the SWP, via Respect, into a sort of incoherent Labourite Stalinism whilst playing the role of tame anti-Trot witch-hunter for unspecified audiences, Andy Nooman at least provides some entertainment this festive season. I was about to say “harmless” entertainment, but his latest ranting on his ”Socialist Unity” blog, about the revolutionary left (in this case, the AWL/ Alliance for Workers Liberty) is, by his own account “a redacted version of something I wrote for another audience.” I wonder who that “other audience” might be?
.
Above: Stroppybird’s cat
Nooman’s sub-political tirade is avowedly based upon John Sullivan’s ‘When This Pub Closes’ which is poor stuff but at least evinces some political grasp of its subject(s). In fact, Nooman, whether he knows it or not, is more in the tradition of the rank Stalinist ignoramous Denver Walker’s student union-level, scummy little tome ‘Quite Right Mr Trotsky.’
Anyway, there is much to be enjoyed in Nooman’s bile against the revolutionary left and his grovelling to the Labour/TU bureaucracy, but sadly he doesn’t let us link to “Socialist Unity,” so you’ll have to use Google, or copy/paste socialistunity.com/the-alliance-for-workers-liberty-the-dynamics-of-a-malignant-cult/
The comments are most entertaining as well, including:
* 23. How inept do you have to be in order to pen a hatchet job that embarrasses yourself more than anybody else? - Patrick Smith
* 123. EDUCATION? DEMOCRACY? ACTIVITY? What a DISGRACE to the left. A disgrace to socialist countries/union leaders/students.
I’m really glad you’ve outed them about all that sexual impropriety.m Who needs facts when you’ve got pure conjecture? I bet they’re all a bunch of filthy deviants. Oh and yes, I heard that Sheffield was particularly bad too. Need castrating, the lot of them – RHuzzah
* 142. Until this article was posted I’d never heard of the AWL, and from reading all the heated posts about occult meetings sexual impropriety and filthy deviants I only have one question.
Where do I sign up? – CJB
* 161. Ok. John [John Wight, Nooman's antisemitic sidekick - JD] couldn’t care less about someone writing for this blog or its standing among people who used to advocate for it. Andy completely agrees with him. Egal.
A narrowing of vision accompanied by a growing climate of intolerance, abuse and bullying — I for one have seen this movie a couple of times before And know well the last reel.
So no song and dance, just ciao — bella – Kevin Ovenden [former Socialist Unity contributor - JD]
P.S: Check out the attacks on Yours Truly: Nooman can’t even get this attempt at “humour” right, and work out whether I’m Father Ted or Father Jack…
Patrick Moore: the “acceptable” face of British fascism?
Francis Sedgemore writes:
Celebrity amateur astronomer come racist, misogynistic, homophobic littleenglander kicks the bucket. Tributes flood in from all quarters. National treasure, charmingly eccentric, was kind to cats and foxes. A nation weeps, beatification to follow. Pass the bucket.
JD adds: it seems that as long as you’re an “eccentric,” wear a monocle, and are concerned about animals, your vile, racist (verging on fascist) views can be overlooked, even in Graun-land:
“Though his opposition to immigration and, latterly, Britain becoming a ‘dumping ground’ for economic as distinct from political refugees, alienated many left-wingers, he was too patently against human and animal suffering and too scatter-gun in his beliefs to make such critics more than mildly uncomfortable. His tireless work explaining the universe – punctuated by his mantra of scientific inquiry, ‘We just don’t know’ – was altogether more creditable and important” – Dennis Barker
Yes indeed: pass that bucket, Francis.
Above: horrible old fascist
P.S: UKIP mourn “a true Englishman.”
Galloway’s Song for Croydon North
I thought this was a nasty, racist spoof created by Galloway’s enemies to make him and ‘Honeyglaze’ Jasper look and sound like a pair of total jerks (not that it’s difficult to do that). But apparently it’s genuine. If you haven’t already seen it, brace yourself and prepare to cringe:
Hopefully, the humiliations at Croydon North and Rotherham, coming hard on the heels of the resignation of Salma Yaqoob, will finally kill off the reactionary, communalist vanity project that is/was ‘Respect.’
